Grenade scare on RIMS campus

Imphal, April 24 : Terror struck the employees of the Regional Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) here this morning after two unidentified persons left a grenade at the administrative block that houses the office of director S. Sekharjit.

Police later recovered the grenade, which was placed inside a black polythene bag.

The police said two unknown persons arrived at the entrance of the administrative block of the medical institute around 9.30am and gave the bag containing the grenade to the administrative block chowkidar, asking him to hand over the packet to senior officials of the institute. It was a Chinese grenade, the police added.

“They asked me to give the bag to senior officials and left. I was near the entrance of the block when they came,” the chowkidar, Boni Singh, said.

The director and most of the employees were not present in the administrative block as there was a general holiday in Manipur today on account of Khongjom Day, observed in memory of the Anglo-Manipur war.

The chowkidar reported the matter to the authorities of the institute, who, in turn, informed the police.

Senior officials later reviewed the security measures in and around the institute’s complex located at Lamphel of Imphal West, barely 2km from the city.

“The authorities took a serious note of the incident and reviewed the whole security environment inside the complex. An overhauling of the security measures is in the offing,” a source in the institute said.

The director and the medical superintendent, H. Shantikumar Singh, were not available for comment.

Personnel of the CRPF and India Reserve Battalion are deployed in the institute along with a police picket and some private security guards for protection of the complex. CRPF personnel guard the administrative block.

Sources in the institute said there was no security guard at the entrance of the administrative block when the duo handed over the grenade to the chowkidar.

After the incident police and CRPF personnel searched the entire complex with the help of a sniffer dog. However, no incriminating article was recovered.

Moreover, no one has made any claim in this regard and no one has been arrested as yet.